Discussions By Condition: I cannot get a diagnosis.

Thick excessive mucus causes me to gag/choke until I pass out.

Diagnosis? This is an effort to be as concise as possible so nothing gets left out as any of these symptoms may indicate what this might be. First of all I have been trying to seek a diagnosis for this chronic condition for many years. I feel that I have been misdiagnosed in the past because nothing has yielded any results. I feel it is time to search the less common possibilities of what it might be (autoimmune) etc. I eventually stopped seeking treatment for this because I would reach road blocks everywhere I went. Doctors would be stumped and pass me on to the next doctor or specialist and each one came up with nothing. Following through just kept coming around full circle with nothing to show for it. All of this has killed my hope for ever having a normal life. I need someone to follow up and work with me to help me figure out what this is.

Ever since I can remember I have had very thick and slippery saliva with an elastic consistency. I have never been able to eat breakfast because it is so bad in the morning that if I eat anything I will vomit. As a child I wouldn’t even be able to eat until I got home from school. I would often have to go to the nurse’s office because I felt like I was going to throw up. They thought this was stomach related because that is the reason most people have the urge to throw up. But my problem has always been the gagging sensation caused by the consistency of my saliva that coats the back of my throat, esophagus, and uvula making me have a constant gagging sensation that I am unable to stop. Because of this involuntary reflex during these episodes it becomes very difficult to breathe and I find myself gasping for breathes any chance I get between gags (this feels very similar to choking on food). I have had to call 4 ambulances and been to the emergency room numerous times and have also passed out from not being able to breathe. Around December of 2005 (age 21 at the time) it has become a lot worse and as a result to all of the trauma associated with this I now have constant anxiety/panic attacks throughout the day that exacerbate this condition and I am unable to work or leave the house. I was forced to quit my job in Minneapolis and moved back to home so my family could take care of me. I had lost around 50 pounds in 1 months time (went from 200lbs to 150lbs) because I was unable to swallow food without causing an episode so I was unable to eat more than a few crackers a day (if that). On top of that I can only breathe out of one nostril barely and only a small amount of air can pass through like a tiny straw due to a deviated septum. It takes me 10 to 15 seconds to get one full breathe from it so when my air passages become obstructed from this I have no back up. I have had a Septoplasty surgery to try to relieve this and it didn’t help.